


Gift of the turtle lions

by Valaena_the_Historyteller1



Series: Wanderers and benders [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26687911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valaena_the_Historyteller1/pseuds/Valaena_the_Historyteller1
Summary: After being send out to exile along with Prince Zuko, Maglor found some faces from his past. What was an elf doing in the Southern Air temple? Maybe he was not the last one on those shores... apart from Daeron, of course. Meanwhile, Daeron is teaching Katara and wondering where his problematic friend is... when he also receives a visit with a gift. And with the Avatar so close, he was going to need it more than ever. what will the war have in store for them?
Relationships: Daeron/Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: Wanderers and benders [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942057
Kudos: 5





	Gift of the turtle lions

**Author's Note:**

> I thought to make another little work like this, hope you like it.

The Sky was lonely that day, just as it has been the last few years. It was odd how in a world such as the one the edain has build, things would happen so fast, disappear so fast… at least to Salgant. Maybe it was because he was an elf that he thought things were moving so quickly, but… was it not just a century ago that the skies were so populated? Full of monks, novices, nuns, sky bisons, lemurs… so much life and happiness and life…

The former Lord of the Harp from Gondolin remembered those times very well. They have been his first truly happy ones since he was captured in Gondolin after his greatest act of cowardice and taken prisoner to Angband. There, the bard of the White City became just another slave, mining for Sauron´s coal like everybody else. But it was fine for him, because he deserved it after… after what he allowed Maeglin to do. Or whatever was possessing his friend when he came back to their home a malevolent entity. Besides. It helped to cover his identity. The other slaves would have killed him if they have realised who he was.

Anyway, after the Fall of Angband, he was freed by the forces of Gil Galad. He was so happy, ready to join his fellow refugees in Lindon… when dread came over him again. Coward, it said, Traitor, you deserve to burn. They will kill you… he covered his ears, but the voice remained. And was it not telling the truth? He was not like the others, not an innocent slave, but a traitor, as much as Maeglin himself. If they knew… before they could ask his name and precedence, Salgant escaped the refuge and hid. He wandered since then. If that destiny was enough to be a penitence for the likes of Maglor Feanorion, then he will done the wandering cape too.

It was in such a state that the Monks of the Southern Air Temple found him. With no idea of who he was or his deplorable actions, they accepted him. and when he told them, they didn´t threw him out. They gave him the best of gifts his wounded soul could ask for, forgiveness. Or the ability to forgive himself. That way, the pacifist spiritual edain became his new family. He sang for them, meditate with them, laugh with them… so much that some of his scars from Angband became less noticeable. Yes, they were his family now.

But the centuries of peace couldn´t last forever. The Fire Nation attacked them, like a pack of wolves descending over sheep. The monks did what they could to defend their people, but there was nothing they could do, not against an army decided to exterminate them all. Salgant, refusing to a coward again, fought against them. Arm in arm with Gyatsu, he bloodied his sword.

“You must leave” the monk said tiredly. They were completely surrounded with no way to escape or leave, Sozin´s comet right over their heads, powering up the firebenders. 

“I won´t leave you” the bard answered, grabbing the handle of his sword harder.

“No, I´m going to die here, but something… something tells me you still have something else to do. Something really important” Gyatsu put himself in airbending stance again. “So find Aang, if you can, and help him to achieve his destiny. You are our only hope.”

“Gyatsu…”

“The world is much more important than just the Air Nomads, my friend, and if this is our end, we will accept it. Only because we know there is still hope that balance will be regained in the end. Now go!!”

Before he could say anything. Gyatsu produced such a powerful funnel that he knocked all the Fire Nation soldiers in one side, proceeding to send Salgant himself through it, practically flinging him off the mountain. Only being an elf saved him, as he managed to twist in his fall and grab an edge of the mountain. He then proceeded to escalate the mountain to help the monks. His body was killing him, but he continued. All useless. When he climbed back up the Air Nomads were all dead. Gone and Cold, just like the Elves of Gondolin. Gone to never be seen again by his eyes, like the slaves from Angband. Gone… and he wasn´t able to do anything.

“I knew it!! I knew there have to be someone in the Air Temples!!” a young voice snapped Salgant out of his thoughts. He turned around, half expecting airbenders to appear, only to see Fire Nation soldiers. The leader of their squad was quite young… now they were sending children off to war? “You are mine now, Avatar!!”

“Prince Zuko…” the voice of the figure next to him caught the former lord´s attention. Much to his surprise, he knew that face. He had known it since the First Kinslaying, where he noticed it covered in the blood of his people. 

“Just look at that, a known face to accompany new ones” he lifted himself from the rock he was sitting in. “It has been a long time, Makalaurë.”

“Salgamanto?” asked the other elf, surprised. The teleri smiled, cold eyes landing on the Feanorion. “I thought… were you here this whole time? Why didn´t you leave for the west as the others did?”

“I could ask the same question to you, but I already know the answer. Isn´t that right, kinslayer?” hearing that word again made Maglor physically cringe. It has been such a long time since he was last called like that… and at the same time not enough. “Murder follow you like fleas a dog, no? And now you are aiding genocide… guess old habits die hard.”

“You don´t know anything about me, Salgamanto, don´t act as if you do” the other minstrel said, showing his teeth. “You were only the bootlicker of my cousin and a traitor to boot. You don´t have the right to judge me.”

“I was a victim of yours once, don´t you remember? Alqualondë, the city where you committed your first murder… that was my home. The blood you shed there was from my people, the ships you took sacred to me” he looked down at the kinslayer. “And now you are here again, helping the people who murder others I consider my own.”

“I didn´t help…”

“Don´t lie!! I know what you are capable of!!” Salgant finally was screaming, blaming the noldor for everything. “I know who they are too!! Whose blood flows through their veins!!” this threw aback Makalaurë. How did he…? “And I hope they die screaming. Just like both of my families, who you help to murder.”

“Salgamanto…”

“Hope the Avatar comes back and sinks the Fire Nation into the Ocean!! Just like the legacy of that son your black heart loves so much!!” Iroh´s eyes widened. Son? He never knew the Great Councillor had a son. Much less that he lost him. If he had known… he approached the man, trying to pry him away from the other man, but this one began to sing. A song that made him think of… landslides? And snow?

“I don´t deny anything, I am a kinslayer, a murderer and a cursed being, but…” Maglor began, lifting himself from the ground. “Don´t you dare to mess with my sons, Salgamanto. Don´t ever mess with them!!”

Makalaurë´s own song of power began, quickly overpowering Salgant´s and turning the landslide against him. The teleri elf was thrown by the power of that song down the same path Gyatsu sent him years before. For a moment, he felt like an idiot. How could he think even for a second that his song could overpower Makalaurë´s? The elf was one of the great sons of Fëanáro, one of the legendary three bards. How could have he thought that he could defeat one of those flawed minstrels? He was so busy falling that he nearly missed that spoiled prince screaming…

“Wait!! You are letting him escape!! We have to get him!!”

“He is not the Avatar, Prince Zuko” Maglor said, hugging himself. Another kinslaying, not his fifth. He was truly cursed. “He is not even an airbender”

In that moment, he felt his fall stop. He opened his eyes, not even realising he had closed them… only to find a figure that he had never thought he would see again. 

“Am I dead?” he asked.

“Not yet, Salgamanto of the teleri, Former Lord of the Harp of Gondolin” Eonwë said, his hand resting in the head of a lion turtle that seemed ethereal. “I have come to bring you a gift.”

“The Valar are not know for giving gifts to cursed elves”

“They are now” the maia answered, closing his eyes. “Manwë is calling the remaining of the Eldar back to Aman, all of them. But before that, you must accomplish one last task.”

“The Avatar” Salgant understood. “I… was going to search for him anyway, I owe… I owe it to the Nomads that took me in” he frowned. “Where do I begin?”

“Search for the lights in the South” was the herald of Manwë´s only answer, as he moved aside, leaving him exposed to the lion turtle. “And to help your travels, accept this gift from the Lord of the Winds.”

A gigantic paw touching his forehead was the next thing he felt, before he was falling again. He twisted himself and moved his hands, producing a wind that slowed his fall. He landed less than gracefully, looking back at the mountain. He didn´t have a moment to lose, he had to go south… south… south.

For his part, Makalaurë was sitting in the deck of the Wani, trying not to think about Salgant´s words. Or that he had just kinslayed again. Or that Elros, Estel and Arwen were… no, he won´t go there. As he hasn´t gone there for centuries. Iroh approached him in that moment, handing him a red cloak.

“The nights are cold in this part of the world” the Dragon of the West commented. “Maybe this is a little ironic after Lu Ten´s death and how you tried to help me then, but… are you alright?”

“Yes, don´t worry about me” he assured him, smiling weakly. 

“A child´s death is always something difficult to get over”

“It happened a long time ago…”

“Lu Ten´s too, but the pain still follows me” Maglor sighed, turning his deep grey eyes to the General. He never expected him to try to approach him with something like that, not after all the efforts he has done after the disastrous Siege to get him to open to him. “Talking might help, you told me that. And maybe it was from experience.”

“Something like that, yes” he said, looking back at the sea. “He was not an only child…”

“But it still hurts” Iroh continued. “I can see that” he poured some tea. The Feanorian haven´t seen the pot he brought with himself, but that was to be expected. The man was a true tea lover, as much as Arwen was. “But I feel obliged to say I was surprised to hear about your children. I have known you all my life and never knew you to have one, let alone two.”

“Twins, they were adorable when tiny”

“Lu Ten, Zuko and Azula too… okay, she not so much” the chuckled together. The children of his peredhil were all cute in his mind, even Ozai, but no one as much as his own. Which made his heart ache again for Elros. “Iroh… if you don´t mind, can you ask the helmsman to take us somewhere else? I want to… visit someone.”

“As long as it is not in Fire Nation Waters…”

“It´s not, believe me. I just… need to be somewhere else now”

“I don´t see why not”

A few days and a tantrum from Zuko later, they were in waters near the Earth Kingdom, but dangerously close to the Fire Nation… well, more than Iroh would like. Everybody thought he was crazy, as nothing was there. Well, nothing important, at least. Or on the view. But Makalaurë knew they were mistaken. He would, after all, always find his way here. 

“Why are we here?” Zuko asked. “We should be finding our way to the Avatar!!”

“Because, Prince Zuko, this is the place my son is buried in” Maglor answered, a flower crown in his hands. The young royal shut up, making way for him. The Feanorion threw the flowers into the water, singing in quenya for all the children he lost there. From Elros to Míriel, then for the kings of Gondor and Arnor, Estel, Arwen, Eldarion… all the children he won´t see again until the end of the world. “Good bye, my little star”

“Kannafinwë Makalaurë” he opened the eyes to see the sky completely dark, everything frozen around him and the Sun Maiden Arien with her hand on the head of a lion turtle. “The Valar are reclaiming all the Eldar to Valinor.”

“After all this years, the Valar want me back? It´s impossible, I kinslayed again…”

“You didn´t, Eonwë took charge of that” the maia glared at him. “But you have probed, time and time again, that you are not redeemed. That is why you will have to pass a final prove to return. If you fail” she lowered her voice. “Not only you, but your whole family will go to the Void you swore yourselves to.”

“They are still in Mandos?”

“You are still here” she signalled to Prince Zuko. “Remember, Kannafinwë Makalaurë, only you can make that horrible Oath null and void. The destiny of your family is in your hands… and his.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Change the Fire Nation. Crown the rightful heir, help the Avatar bring balance again to the Edain and we will consider your punishment complete. Be warned, Prince Zuko´s redemption is also yours, the Avatar´s victory yours too. Find him in the South, his return is about to come” she motioned to the lion turtle. “And to help you in your quest…”

A few minutes later, everybody was waken up. Makalaurë was still staring to the sky, remembering the warning of the Sun Maiden. To save his family… well, he was already planning to reform the Fire Nation and replace Ozai with Zuko, but… now he was rushing things. He believed he had the time of the world, until he and Iroh managed to change stubborn Zuko´s way of thinking, but… they were rushing things now.

“Are you finished?” the young royal asked.

“Yes” Maglor raised a hand, where a little flame was held. Iroh approached him, surprised by the sudden firebending. “Communicate with the White Lotus, the Avatar is near” he whispered. “We will find him in the South”

-In the Earth Kingdom-

“I swear that Kuei gets more and more obnoxious each day that passes” Thranduil heard Long Feng talking and talking about how much he wanted to get rid of the Earth King passively, not really listening to him. He could afford that because he was the true King there. Seriously, he was the true King there. 

When the Elemental Nations were formed, the Greenwood has turned a desolated place for it´s King… or for the last elf there. It was the same. When his people abandoned him there, following the call of the Valar, the woods started to wane, but… he refused to leave. This was his place, after all. He was the King of the Greenwood!! And he must remain there!! The edain found them there, following their foolish King, and demand to conquer. Thranduil let them stay with him, let them build their incredible Ba Sing Se, be his new people… cloaking himself with the King and his descendants, of course. To the public, he was an advisor. In truth, he was the King. And, after Avatar Kyoshi came to form the Dai Li, he got even more powerful. Now it was like his people had never abandon them.

“I will go to the Catacombs” he finally said, interrupting Feng Long´s rant. “don´t try to contact me there unless Kuei is dying or I will make sure the only job you manage to find is cleaning the sewers.”

“Of course” Thranduil went down to the crystal catacombs. It wasn´t a great place for an elf, but to him… it brought him calm. The shinning crystals were like remains of his former glory. He breathed in and out…

“Thranduil Orophenion” a voice suddenly reached his ears. He turned around to scream at whoever interrupted him, but he froze in that moment. 

“Aiwendil” he let out, seeing the maia with a lion turtle.

“How the powerful has fallen, Thranduil” he let out. “Why did you ignore the call of the Valar?”

“That call was not for me or my own. We were born here and should have died here, not like the golodh” he answered. “Guess my fading took too long, then.”

“Did it?”

“Not so much” the silver haired one said. “Why are you here?”

“To entrust you a mission” the maia answered. “The Avatar will come back to this world soon. He will need the strength of Ba Sing Se to defeat the Fire Lord… he will need you.”

“And why should I lend my forces to him?” the elf answered, growling. “If the Fire Nation wants to attack my city, let them come. Not even the Dragon of the West has managed to breach my Wall, they won´t succeed.”

“The kinslayer Maglor Feanorion will come with them now, aren´t you worried about that?” this stopped the other on his tracks. Maglor Feanorion, ah? He had wanted to hunt one of his family down since the Fall of Doriath. And the Vala knew it. Also that he made the perfect bait to rope Thranduil in. “He is with the Fire Nation now”

“Why didn´t you began with that?” yes, he was swallowing the bait, but who cares? He wanted to kill a Feanorian. “And… I guess your guest is here to give me something. Could it be a good dose of earthbending?”

“Clever as ever” and the lion turtle gifted it to him.

-In the South Pole-

“Guess I was not dreaming after all… Ossë” Daeron said. He had just finished his lesson with Katara when he saw his first maia in years. He thought he was dreaming, but… now he knew he wasn´t. “Are you here to berate me for still loving a four times kinslayer who is helping madmen take over the world?”

“I am here to offer you a chance to stop him… and aid him, I guess” the maia shrugged. “Anyway, Ulmo sent me to offer you waterbending to teach that little girl as much as you can, so she can in turn teach the Avatar, but as you are already doing that… I don´t know. You want it?”

“To help Makalaurë? Of course” he answered, thinking in the necklace he had for centuries, a beautiful thing of red and blue silk, with a stone pendant in the form of a tiny harp attached. That one, which should have been around his dear´s neck for long.

“Then off you go to war. Hope you two manage to get out of it alive, because it will be his last chance.”

“Then we will”

-In the bottom of the ocean-

“What…”

“Come here, young Avatar” Aang turned to see three elegant people taking tea around a table. He opened his mouth to ask something, but he was interrupted by the one who talked. “Come, please. I´m afraid we don´t have much time. The minutes Námo gave to us are precious and I would prefer to spend them talking than with other things.”

“What do you want from me?” asked the airbender. “Are you spirits?”

“In some way, we are” the woman said. “It´s the only way the dead can communicate with the living”

“Who are you?” the young monk asked, a bit afraid. Was this like when he met Manwë? They didn´t look like Manwë, they were too… human. But at the same time, they had a bit of that spirit spark in them.

“I´m Estel” the third answered. “That is my wife, Arwen, and my ancestor, Elros. We come to plea to you to please send all of the Eldar back home.”

“Manwë said the same…”

“Yes, because the time of the Eldar in this coasts has long since passed, but some stubborn ones refuse to understand it. Grief, pride, love… the chains that keeps them here are many, but they must release them and answer the call of the Valar… before it´s too late.”

“I… I would hate to be the cause of someone´s death, but… if they don´t really want to go…”

“This is more than a petition in the name of the Valar, is personal for us” Elros lowered his teacup, his face contorted in pain. “Long time ago, before the Nations were formed, I had a father which I loved very much. He loved me too and my brother… a lot. And that love made it easy for a twisted descendant of mine to manipulate him into serving the now vile Fire Nation.” He sighed. “That is why, young Avatar, I beg you. Please defeat the Fire Lord and send my father back where he belongs.”

“But…”

“I might pain him, but he must understand that the faults of my line are not his own to bare, that the destruction they will bring onto themselves is not his fault either, that instead of crying for the son he lost, he should be healing with the one he still has” Elros lowered his head. “Please, I beg you, send Makalaurë back to my brother.”

“Mister…”

“Hand him this” Arwen said, taking a necklace off her neck. She shared a look with her husband before she handed it to the Avatar. “To make him understand that your claim is real”

“But…”

“You must leave now, our time here is over” Estel said, as his image became blurry. “Please, send him home.”  
Aang felt as if he was sucked by a vortex, then spit in the middle of something freezing. Voices could be heard nearby, voices… then a crack. He opened his eyes again, to see a beautiful girl in blue, with the biggest and most precious eyes he had ever seen.

“Would you like to go penguin sledding with me?” he asked her, as it was the only thing that came to his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think? Review!!


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